Matthewjocko Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 I am installing a Toshiba Camera system in C4 using security spy, therefore I am going to use the EV driver for security spy. I plan on installing the Toshiba IK-WR12A and having security spy manage them. I have tested the security spy trial and it seems to be great. Does any one have any experience with this? Are the cameras good? Is security spy a good solution? I researched the cameras and have found them for about 500$. Is that a good price? Does anyone know where I can get them cheaper? Does anyone have experience with other Dome, IR, POE, Outdoor cameras that work with security spy and like them?Thanks for all your help,Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 I am installing a Toshiba Camera system in C4 using security spy, therefore I am going to use the EV driver for security spy. I plan on installing the Toshiba IK-WR12A and having security spy manage them. I have tested the security spy trial and it seems to be great. Does any one have any experience with this? Are the cameras good? Is security spy a good solution? I researched the cameras and have found them for about 500$. Is that a good price? Does anyone know where I can get them cheaper? Does anyone have experience with other Dome, IR, POE, Outdoor cameras that work with security spy and like them?Thanks for all your help,MattI have the EV security Spy driver. It's been fantastic. In fact the whole SS experience has been great. But for the driver to throw up an image within Control4, SS needs to be running, that is the mac needs to be on. I leave a server on all the time for this, with SS recording continuously. The EV SS driver is a great way to get any camera compatible with SS into control4. This includes analog cameras that a "digitalized" thru a camera server like the Stardot (which is what I use) I've also got an Axis which works great. Basically all you do is get your trial version of SS, look down the list to make sure the Toshiba (or any other camera you are interested in) is on the list of compatible cameras, and if it's on the list, you should be fine. If it then pops up as viewable in SS, it should be good to go with the driver (as far as I know)Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well_armed Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Are you purchasing the security spy software only to record? Than yes, its a good value if you do not have a Synology NAS (then I would tell you to use their built in surveillance station) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthewjocko Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Are you purchasing the security spy software only to record? Than yes, its a good value if you do not have a Synology NAS (then I would tell you to use their built in surveillance station)I am purchasing it to record and view the cameras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevvo Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 SecuritySpy is great. Are you setting aside a Mac Mini as a dedicated camera server? The software does tend to use a lot of resources when it is recording so you should keep that in mind. But I have 6 cameras on it and haven't had any issues. I even use that Mac Mini as my LLTP server so I can VPN into my home network from my iPhone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Yeh, I agree, I think it's best with a dedicated server. I'm using it on an old macpro. As a matter of interest I contacted Ben (SS's software developer) to add in growl/prowl support. This would be a great thing to integrate with Seth's push notify driver. He told me he would work on this for a future release.... :cool:Also if you have a dedicated mac server for "security", you can leave "hardware growl" running and prowl notify power outages etc that way...With iphone camera monitoring as mentioned, this basically becomes an offsite security monitoring service right on your very own iphone. Way quicker/cheaper and more reliable than even a dedicated monitoring company...The only thing I haven't quite got sorted out yet is a suitable online backup service to use with SS. Ben suggests mounting "idisk". But this won't be available when mobileme is shut down by Apple in a few months.Anybody got any suggestions how to backup/upload images. (ie what fttp server to use) .preferably "on the fly"..?Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthewjocko Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 SecuritySpy is great. Are you setting aside a Mac Mini as a dedicated camera server? The software does tend to use a lot of resources when it is recording so you should keep that in mind. But I have 6 cameras on it and haven't had any issues. I even use that Mac Mini as my LLTP server so I can VPN into my home network from my iPhone.I am going to have a dedicated server running the program. I am planning to use the best Mac Mini apple has but I am a little nervous because on the SecuritySpy website they have a computer sizing calculator. It shows you how much processing power you need and it always says that I need a Mac Pro with 8 Cores. How could you possibly have SIX CAMERAS on a Mac Mini! Also I plan on getting the server version of the Mac Mini and using it for VPN for my iphone for Remote Access to the C4 system. If it makes a difference also I will using the built in file sharing on this computer to stream tv shows to 6 apple tv's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthewjocko Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Yeh, I agree, I think it's best with a dedicated server. I'm using it on an old macpro. As a matter of interest I contacted Ben (SS's software developer) to add in growl/prowl support. This would be a great thing to integrate with Seth's push notify driver. He told me he would work on this for a future release.... :cool:Also if you have a dedicated mac server for "security", you can leave "hardware growl" running and prowl notify power outages etc that way...With iphone camera monitoring as mentioned, this basically becomes an offsite security monitoring service right on your very own iphone. Way quicker/cheaper and more reliable than even a dedicated monitoring company...The only thing I haven't quite got sorted out yet is a suitable online backup service to use with SS. Ben suggests mounting "idisk". But this won't be available when mobileme is shut down by Apple in a few months.Anybody got any suggestions how to backup/upload images. (ie what fttp server to use) .preferably "on the fly"..?CheersIf this helps what I plan on doing is buying 2 Drobo FS's and putting one in one house and one in another. Then using Goodsync to keep them in sync and have mirrored Drobo FS's. What you could do also is get Sugarsync or Dropbox or Idrive and use that to backup the folder with the SecuritySpy Videos/Images on your computer. I recommend Idrive because it is only $150 a year and you get 500GB. Idrive tends to be a little bit more annoying to set up but I believe that it is worth the value. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Yeh it does. But doesn't SS need an FTP server to backup images? There is no point mirroring (or backup"ing") captured image files if this is not done in real time. Otherwise the crooks have walked off/disabled the sever in the house (with all the images) before they have been moved off site ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wappinghigh Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Look's like idrive has automatic realtime syncing. :cool:Thanks for the suggestion.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthewjocko Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Yeh it does. But doesn't SS need an FTP server to backup images? There is no point mirroring (or backup"ing") captured image files if this is not done in real time. Otherwise the crooks have walked off/disabled the sever in the house (with all the images) before they have been moved off site .....You could use idrive or one of the others to backup the folder in real time. I would recommend Sugar sync or dropbox because I have had less problems with them then idrive. They cost more but seem to me, to be better built. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevvo Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 SecuritySpy is great. Are you setting aside a Mac Mini as a dedicated camera server? The software does tend to use a lot of resources when it is recording so you should keep that in mind. But I have 6 cameras on it and haven't had any issues. I even use that Mac Mini as my LLTP server so I can VPN into my home network from my iPhone.I am going to have a dedicated server running the program. I am planning to use the best Mac Mini apple has but I am a little nervous because on the SecuritySpy website they have a computer sizing calculator. It shows you how much processing power you need and it always says that I need a Mac Pro with 8 Cores. How could you possibly have SIX CAMERAS on a Mac Mini! Also I plan on getting the server version of the Mac Mini and using it for VPN for my iphone for Remote Access to the C4 system. If it makes a difference also I will using the built in file sharing on this computer to stream tv shows to 6 apple tv's.Actually there are a couple of things that I did to minimize the load:1.) I turned off the video streams from showing on the Mac Mini itself. Since it isn't hooked up to a monitor or tv screen, there's no point in wasting video resources to show on there.2.) I have it only record on movement. This minimizes the actual simultaneous recordings going on. However some of my cameras tend to get spider webs on them and some of them record all day. HahaIn regards to the L2TP (sorry I had a typo in my previous post, not LLTP).... You don't have to buy the "Server" version of your Mac Mini, you can save a few bucks and buy a 15 (pound) gui called iVPN to setup your server that way. Or you can go the cheap route like me and follow the instructions here: http://blog.theilluminatedengineer.com/?p=136 - It took me a while through trial and error but it works for me.Another cool thing I've done is wall mounted my 1st gen iPad and use it as a 24/7 camera monitor. Good luck with your setup! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthewjocko Posted March 18, 2012 Author Share Posted March 18, 2012 SecuritySpy is great. Are you setting aside a Mac Mini as a dedicated camera server? The software does tend to use a lot of resources when it is recording so you should keep that in mind. But I have 6 cameras on it and haven't had any issues. I even use that Mac Mini as my LLTP server so I can VPN into my home network from my iPhone.I am going to have a dedicated server running the program. I am planning to use the best Mac Mini apple has but I am a little nervous because on the SecuritySpy website they have a computer sizing calculator. It shows you how much processing power you need and it always says that I need a Mac Pro with 8 Cores. How could you possibly have SIX CAMERAS on a Mac Mini! Also I plan on getting the server version of the Mac Mini and using it for VPN for my iphone for Remote Access to the C4 system. If it makes a difference also I will using the built in file sharing on this computer to stream tv shows to 6 apple tv's.Actually there are a couple of things that I did to minimize the load:1.) I turned off the video streams from showing on the Mac Mini itself. Since it isn't hooked up to a monitor or tv screen' date=' there's no point in wasting video resources to show on there.2.) I have it only record on movement. This minimizes the actual simultaneous recordings going on. However some of my cameras tend to get spider webs on them and some of them record all day. HahaIn regards to the L2TP (sorry I had a typo in my previous post, not LLTP).... You don't have to buy the "Server" version of your Mac Mini, you can save a few bucks and buy a 15 (pound) gui called iVPN to setup your server that way. Or you can go the cheap route like me and follow the instructions here: http://blog.theilluminatedengineer.com/?p=136 - It took me a while through trial and error but it works for me.Another cool thing I've done is wall mounted my 1st gen iPad and use it as a 24/7 camera monitor. Good luck with your setup![/quote']I actually plan on buying the server version of the mac mini that comes with the OS X Lion server version. So I though I might as well use what I am getting for free. Even though you have change those things i cant believe that a mac Mini is able to handle all those cameras. I would think smoke would be coming out of that computer!! That ipad setup sounds cool I might have to copy you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CFUG Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 ^Not sure what you guys are talking about here. I run 6 cams on the same computer I'm writing this and streaming music. Never had a single issue with anything. Must be an "Apple thing"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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